Tag: digital

During the Summer of 2013, whilst interested in psychogeography, I followed a couple of parkour practioners around their (and my) home town of Elgin. Parkour came almost directly out of the Situationist International movement which developed the idea of psychogeography as a way to conceptualise the city in alternative ways. Parkour perfectly demonstrates this activity by allowing the practioner to traverse the city in ways unknown before and gain a special insight into the way the city is formed.

The couple I followed became of more interest to me. Their relationship was one of teacher and student yet the couple had a child together. A family born out of parkour. Like the gypsies travellers or counter-culture hippies, this small group had a unique perspective of the city and the way to live their own lives within it.

Their motivation was not to get from A to B; from house to shop to work to shop to home. Their paths were dictated by challenges, self propelled or from their peers. The challenge to move and bounce between buildings, reach roofs never reached and leap from wall to wall. As the couple flipped and climbed on the top floor of the old tesco’s car park, they took it in turns to watch their son who tottered under the open sky. This child was to grow up with buildings as his climbing frame.